


Right Where They Are

by ishtarelisheba



Series: Dark Castle Shenanigans [3]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Dark Castle, F/M, Kelpies, Rumbelle Showdown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-22
Updated: 2015-04-22
Packaged: 2018-03-25 05:20:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3798250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishtarelisheba/pseuds/ishtarelisheba
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rumbelle Showdown 2015 - Round Six - (prompts: water spirits, giggle, what might have been)</p><p>Rumpel has an errand to attend to for dealing purposes. Belle talks her way into tagging along.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Right Where They Are

“A kelpie?” Belle’s ears perked. She marked her place with a straw braid and dropped the book into her chair, practically running across the room to interrupt his stride toward the doors.

Rumpelstiltskin gave her a quirk-mouthed look of mock caution as he came to a stop.

She waited for a moment, just in case he might invite her of his own will. When he didn’t, she took the initiative. “May I come along?”

“What does a maid want with kelpie hunting?” he scoffed.

She grinned broadly, and he did his best to ignore the pleasant flip it gave his stomach.

“A maid?” she said. “Nothing. An adventuress…”

“Still fancying yourself a hero, hm?”

“Please?” she asked, stepping aside when he stepped forward, continuing on his heels. “Please, may I come along? I’ve never seen a kelpie.”

“And for good reason. They’re quite dangerous.” The great hall doors opened ahead of him and closed themselves almost fast enough to catch the the tail of her skirt. He turned, catching her up short, and wagged a finger at her nose. “Little maids such as yourself often come to a very wet end.”

Belle raised her brows and tilted her head at him, and he frowned in consternation at himself. “By drowning!” he clarified, and whirled away toward the castle doors. They opened themselves onto a sun-drenched day, and the silence of the castle gave way to a bit of birdsong.

He no longer heard her slight footsteps in his wake. Against his better judgement, he looked back to find his maid standing where he’d stopped her, looking crestfallen. “Your dinner will be ready when you get back,” she said, rallying with a smile that brought no sparkle to her wide blue eyes.

Oh, he would regret this.

“Come on, then,” he said, waving an impatient arm at her. In a great puff of magic, he summoned her cloak onto her. “Don’t delay me, or I shall feed you to the water horse myself!”

Belle trotted after him, not at all surprised to find the carriage waiting.

“Why do you need a kelpie?” she asked once they were on the forest road.

“It’s part of a deal,” he explained briefly.

“You aren’t going to _hurt_ it, are you?”

“Taking a kelpie’s bridle causes no harm. A bit of aggravation, I’m sure, but no harm.”

“What will you get in return for it?”

He sighed at her, but he didn’t begrudge the answers as much as he pretended to. “A violin bow that I can trade for a certain axe I’ve had my eye on for quite some time.”

Belle hummed thoughtfully. “It seems an awful lot of trouble to go to for an axe.”

He imitated her hum, leaning closer for a moment. “You don’t know the axe.”

“What does a kelpie’s bridle do? There must be some benefit to owning one.” She’d read enough to know of their magical properties, but the particulars interested her.

“Oh, any number of things. One can turn a person into a horse…” He smirked over at her, and she gave him a disapproving look. “One can make a powerful healing potion. Which, I suspect, is why the lady in question desires it.”

“She needs to heal someone?”

“Mm. Her husband is quite ill.”

“Why not simply ask you to heal him?”

“The cost is high. She would rather risk a kelpie come to search for its bridle than a higher debt to the Dark One.”

The carriage came to a stop so sudden that she nearly tumbled from her seat. “We’re there?” she asked. It seemed too quick a trip.

“Of course not.” The carriage door opened and he hopped down, turning back to offer her his hand. “We walk the rest of the way.”

As gruff and monstrous as he styled himself, such things as his help down from the carriage showed her what kind of man her master was.

“Couldn’t you _poof_ us to the lakeside?” Belle asked, though doing her best not to complain.

He shook his head and gave her a raised eyebrow. “I want to sneak up on it, not frighten it into bolting.”

Belle wasn’t accustomed to so much exercise. The bit of cleaning she did in the castle - which she had to admit wasn’t terribly much - and her walks down to the village hadn’t prepared her for what turned out to be quite an uphill hike. She would exercise herself more after this, that was certain.

“If it bolts-” she began.

“Shh!” he hissed, stretching his arm out before her to halt her footsteps. “Shh…”

She quieted and leaned to look around him. There, next to the water, lay a man with skin so white it appeared nearly silver, glinting like the surface of the lake in the sun. Long, silvery hair pooled around his head where he lay in the grass on the bank, and a fine silver chain glimmered around his neck like a slender stream of water running down his chest.

“ _That’s_ a kelpie?” she whispered.

“Shh!”

“But that’s a man!”

_“Shh!”_

“I thought they were, you know, more horse shaped…”

He gave her a piercing look that went beyond hushing, and she clapped her mouth shut. She followed him, walking in his footprints when he began moving again. They were less than twenty feet from the kelpie when it opened its eyes and spooked, and in a snap of bright light, it was a horse again.

Belle saw immediately the difference from a typical horse. It had slits for nostrils and frills at the back of its ears, and when it whinnied, its teeth were _sharp_ in its too-wide mouth. Its hooves were split in two with a web between, and its coat silver, but its mane and tail were reminiscent of scraggly lake weeds.

Her admiration was cut short when it charged them. Suddenly it veered away, apparently discovering that the Dark One was in pursuit, and turned to run into the water.

“Oh, for-” Rumpelstiltskin grumbled and took himself in a purple cloud of smoke directly into the lake, re-appearing with such a disgusted look on his face that Belle couldn’t help the giggle that slipped out. She circled around behind the horse. Her foot caught on a root in the muddy bank and she stumbled, falling to her knees in the water and splashing her face, laughing all the harder.

Rumpel stopped and looked at her, and she wondered at the look of concern on his face. She shook her head. “I’m all right!”

He looked back to the kelpie, grumbling, “I only want the bridle, you loathsome creature.”

The water horse snorted, and Belle was amused to hear a definite scoff in the sound.

The danger and hilarity of the situation occurred to her as Rumpel tried to talk his brand of sense to the horse, and she wondered what she might be doing right now, had she not made the deal to go with him. Her childhood home would have been destroyed, to begin with. She would be married to Gaston. She would likely be expecting a child by now, and in confinement.

No, she would rather be here, would rather be _right here_ , as odd as her days often were while she shared a home and life with Rumpelstiltskin. Sodden dress, lake water dripping from her eyelashes, and all.

“Belle! Belle, where are you, girl?” Rumpel called, half annoyed at her daydreaming, half disturbed by the fond look she was giving him.

She shook herself from her reverie. The kelpie turned her way, and she reached out, grabbing hold of the silver chain at its wide neck. It stopped, though it stamped its front hooves. “He tells the truth,” she said, daring to reach up and pat the creature’s nose. “We only want your bridle.”

It gave her an unmistakably disbelieving look before transforming back into something man-shaped. “And I’m meant to believe you? Believe _him?”_

“What will it cost you, to give up your bridle?” she asked.

“Me? Nothing.” The kelpie tossed its head in a very horse-like gesture. “It’s easily replaced. But why should I give it up to _that?”_

Belle looked to Rumpel, still standing waist deep in the lake. “Perhaps we can come to some agreement.”

Rumpelstiltskin waded from the water and shook himself before flicking a hand toward his torso to dry his clothing as he stalked toward her. “What are you obligating me to, maid?”

“It might be nice to have dry clothing of my own,” she reminded him.

His eyes were drawn by the neckline of her white blouse clinging to her skin, and she was sure she saw his cheeks darken beneath the golden sheen as he waved a hand at her. She felt ten pounds lighter as the water disappeared from her dress and cape, and the wind caught her hair, giving her a shiver.

“Thank you,” she said, smiling at him, and he gave her a funny look.

The kelpie looked on with impatience.

“Just _take_ the bloody thing,” Rumpelstiltskin snapped, reaching for the bridle, and she raised her hand to stop him.

“He isn’t an animal,” she said, her tone scolding. “He’s an intelligent being, and he can be dealt with. As you’re so fond of doing.”

The kelpie scowled, and Rumpel narrowed his eyes at her.

“Who else could say they’d made a deal of your sort with a kelpie?” she continued, and the two beings before her looked at one another.

She stepped away, sitting at the edge of the lake while Rumpel and the water horse discussed what might be a fair deal. Finally, the kelpie slipped the silver bridle off over his own head and dropped it into Rumpelstiltskin’s hands, satisfied with his part.

“A ‘thank you’ might be nice,” Belle said on the way back through the forest.

Rumpel looked over his shoulder at her, slowing. He looked at the bridle held in his hand and dropped it into his cloak pocket, murmuring, “Thank you.”

“You’re quite welcome!” she chirped, stepping closer to loop her arm through his, enjoying the stunned look he gave her and the slight stumble when he hit a patch of moss in his distraction. “Where to now?”

“Now?” he said. “Now, back to the castle, where you have floor washing to do. Don’t think I missed the spot where you spilled porridge in the kitchen.”

Belle huffed. “Don’t you have somewhere else to go today?”

“I…” He looked over at her as they reached the suggestion of a forest road. His empty hand fidgeted as he considered having her company on further errands. “Well… There is something I must see to in the Agrabah marketplace,” he said, opening the carriage door.

Belle beamed and climbed inside. “I’ve never seen Agrabah.”

“You would be better served to go back to the castle,” he snipped, but he ducked his head to hide his smile when he closed the door, thinking of a particular book stall at the market’s far end that they might happen across.


End file.
